Month: September 2014

The lucky shot is in us all. That once of a lifetime opportunity that will present itself in the most casual outfit. What makes a champion? Sometimes I feel there is nothing to truly solidify a true champion. I mean we all do what we do to deserve a fair chance at greatness.

Over the years growing up I started to see what I needed to work on in order to be better. And also notice my potential in certain aspects that maybe I didn’t feel were even a possibility. Me being me but with a hint of everyone else because regardless of the differences I still know there is a deeper connection that binds us. It just needs to be found. It needs to harnessed and replanted for years to come. Greatness.

I played in YMCA basketball leagues in my younger years. The games were on the weekend and it was where I learned a lot of the fundamentals of the game. I guess it’s where I learned that winning wasn’t everything. Even though we worked towards winning, but when victory came around there was this shared sense of accomplishment. The teammates and the coach could hold that “W” up for the day.

There was this one summer season when the team I was playing on wasn’t doing too well. We hadn’t won any games and a lot of the players had other commitments. This one particular Saturday morning my Grandma took me to our game. That day a few players did not show, so the bench was nearly empty. Yet we still had a competitive game with the opponents. A nail bitter.

They had a two point lead. Nearly the end of the game.

You know with the few no shows that day, it really opened up the playing time for me. I wasn’t sharing that much playing time so I played most of the game. I was the me I never knew I could be.

Back and forth up and down the court. Rebounding their misses. It came down to twenty seconds already counting and us bringing it in. They pass the ball to me and I start to dribble up the sidelines, then I cut up the center of the court. And as the seconds are coming. I knew this was going to be the last shot of the game.

Although I did not know it would go in. This was our first victory that season. When the shot went in, it was like a basketball miracle. It was the Sportscenter top ten moment of my life. After that game when we gathered with our team, someone’s parents would bring us juice or some kind of snack, everyone at the gym was praising me and telling me that it was a “good shot.”

It was just one game when that happened and yet it still can play on the court. I look back at where my life is at and in that moment I’m running out of time and I need to not win but just try to give it my all. When I’m the kid that takes a half-court shot with seconds lefts on the clock and makes it; being able to grasp who I was in that game and now looking back it just gives me a championship feeling.

We did not win the Championship that year. It was the efforts of our playing that made us more than winners though. We all got the skill, it just needs to be channeled within. Greatness is a one on one game but basketball is a team sport. The composure of the player almost decides the draw of that particular match.

I slept through the hurricane. They always told me I was a deep sleeper but I didn’t think tired old me could sleep through a storm of that caliber. This was the storm of the century, the hurricane that took our individual worlds and combined them into one big mess of home.

I was always a math nerd. The weatherman was pretty much giving you a probable prediction. A well proven suggestion was what I was getting. I had a long day so I was just in the mood to rest.

“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” — Gertrude Stein
Do you agree?

I had similar thoughts about this topic. I do know reading is good for the mind although we are from the Google era. The world’s atlas has enough information in it for everyone and it’s accessible by the touch of a fingertip. It reminds me of the line curiosity killed the cat, ironically we are feeding the mind important data to help but in a defeating way, because it stops any action or productivity for the self to experience. We can constantly attain all the information we want from the web but if you don’t gain personal information on living, then what was the purpose?

This topic takes me back to a college discussion where we were talking about how there can be guidelines for the main character and by their own personal efforts they don’t really need to follow them. I think what intrigued me about the talk was that it proved to me that life was short and being aware of your own strengths was key. At the end of your life wouldn’t you like to look back and tell yourself that you went against the grain, or saw what was outside the lines?

Being accountable for your own knowledge while experimenting with what else is out there. Almost finding comparisons in other philosophies other than yours so that you can rebuild on what was original.

I guess Google could show you a map or share with you a great review. But it won’t actually be a real life experience that gave inner personal information about how you felt. And I don’t mean to be attacking Google, I love Google. They are a great resource for information.

Quickly list five things you’d like to change in your life. Now, write a post about a day in your life once all five have been crossed off your to-do list.

The five things I would want to get done instantly:

Have my own house

Be happily married

Be my own boss

Play bass in a rock band

Be in my best health

I guess by hypothetically knocking out these big accomplishments how does your life shift and what does it look like on a day to day basis. My list is specific but I think each one could have a broad meaning and plays into more of who I’m trying to be in the now.

I felt my day would start with doing meditation with my spouse. Starting the day off on a positive wavelength. I don’t really like cooking for myself, but if there is someone I care for that is there with me. Then I want to cook all the time. I think that goes into the being married. I can go find arguments that give love a bad name all night, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t arguments that support the agreement as well. I put marriage on the list because so much of my idols we’re married at one point. So why shouldn’t I give it a try.

I’m totally ignoring the commitment to the other person and really only focusing on what seems worth trying. I guess everyone will always have something to say. And there will always be that kind of judgment from sources that really have no concern for the inner kindness. What comes to mind is John Lennon and Yoko. So much of their relationship was a controversy for what John was supposed to be. That expectation was never enough to keep to the two apart. I think there are those speculations of why a person is the way they are but the things we share with only someone special, that sacred connection John and Yoko have is marriage. I would want to know I’m coming home to someone who sees me as charming as one of the Beetles.

Back to the day.

We would discuss the day over breakfast and cover all that needed to be accomplished. I would share what’s for dinner and probably make plans to get dessert outside of the house. Of course I work at home. I have a den slash office where I do all my writings for work. I have strict office hours where I separate myself from everything and try to do an honest amount of work. Being my own boss making my own hours or at least feeling like I had say over how my time got used would not make my work feel so 8 to 5. If I had to leave the crib I would use a bike. Walking rather than driving so I’m not relying on a car to get around.

I said I wanted to play bass in a Rock band. The reasoning to that, I grew up playing the guitar, that’s the instrument that I play. Although it’s not the limit of my abilities. I think the whole rock band would be to justify that statement of being able to still rock but with a new instrument. There would be a band rehearsal later that afternoon.

Once I arrived back home I would start dinner. Always have the indigents for my signature dishes. Although I never mind if someone else takes the lead in the kitchen. Meaning ordering take out. At dinner I would ask questions about the day or share my insights from the day’s projects.

I have my Mom’s home and my Grandma’s home to connect to, yet that doesn’t mean I don’t want one of my own. A place where I can invent my own etiquette. Be my own landlord.

After dinner we would sit outside and listen to music while the neighborhood went to sleep. Retelling old stories having new insight about up and coming ones. Entertaining the night with board games and old movies. Get something sweet if the sweet tooth is craving.

Do the end of the night meditations and fall asleep. This was just a Monday.

The greatest habit
Is trying to have it
All, and I just want it
All, at all costs
I’m both
The cruse and
The cause
Stay cruising
Never losing
And even if I’m
Losing
I’m gaining
In the experience
Undefeated
With a bad
Habit
Sorry I’m
Back at it
Back to a scheme
A real dream
I’m chasing
One day at a time
Moment to moment
Till I own it
Follow through
On the start
Dying
Trying to make
This life
an art